More than 30 years ago, when Marjorie Susman and Marian Pollack started messing around with making cheese, they were thinking mac. That is: macaroni and cheese.

It was a different cheese era, when Jarlsberg was exotic and brie was for parties.

The couple, who own and operate Orb Weaver Farm in Monkton, were living in western Massachusetts in the late 1970s. They started making cheese in their kitchen, experimenting with possibilities.

“The food thing hadn’t happened yet. The cheese thing hadn’t happened yet,” Susman, 57, said. “When we thought of making cheese, we thought of making a good kid-friendly mac and cheese kind of cheese.”

Susman and Pollack moved to their Monkton farm in 1981 and got a cow. A year later, they built a cheese room and started to make and sell cheese. They also shipped fluid milk.

Thirty years later, Susman and Pollack still make cheese — producing two farmhouse cheeses. One is waxed and one is cave-aged; both are far superior to, and more complex than, cheese for macaroni.

Susman and Pollack have created a seasonal rhythm at their farm — making farmstead cheese in the winter using milk from their small Jersey herd; growing a couple of acres of vegetables in the summer in their market garden.

“I’ve been making cheese forever now, and it’s still like making magic,” Susman said. “It’s still the most unbelievably fabulous thing in the world.”

From November until May, the farmers make cheese two days a week. Virtually all their cheese, some 7,000 pounds, is sold in Addison and Chittenden counties.

“It’s a lovely way to spend the winter,” Susman said.

As the Monkton farmers developed a business that makes sense for them, artisan and farmstead cheese making in Vermont underwent major expansion. Susman and Pollack barely had time to notice.

Beyond the bubble, consider this: In 2001, there were 58 licensed milk processing facilities in Vermont, according to the state Agency of Agriculture. Such facilities take fluid milk and process it into products such as cheese, yogurt or ice cream.

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In 2011, Vermont had 79 milk processing facilities — an increase of 36 percent. Of those 79 facilities, 28 are off-farm processing plants and 51 are on-farm facilities, like Orb Weaver, according to the agriculture agency.

Newer to farmstead cheese making is Sage Farm Goat Dairy in Stowe, owned by sisters Molly and Katie Pindell.

The Pindell sisters grew up in New Hampshire and migrated to Stowe for the skiing. Molly, who is 35, lured her husband, David Wilkens, her sister and her sister’s boyfriend into her goat dairy scheme, she said. She is the only fulltime farmer among the four.

Sage Farm is in its fourth year. They built a cheese room themselves, with help from the Pindells’ father, and milk 16 goats.

They produce about 100 pounds of cheese a week, aging their cheese on the farm in a humidity controlled space.

Sage Farm ships some cheese to Boston, but most of its product is in-state, available at farmers markets and local shops, including Healthy Living in South Burlington (where you can also get Orb Weaver cheese).

Molly Pindell, who has been a chef, learned about goat farming and cheese making in Colorado.

“I fell in love with cheese making,” she said. “Since then I haven’t done anything but.”

Molly Pindell understands that she has joined a growing market. She thinks two factors contribute to the state’s growth in artisan cheese making.

• Vermont’s history as a dairy state, with recognition of the financial constraints related to selling fluid milk.

“By processing it yourself, you’re selling it for a lot more,” Pindell said.

• A do-it-yourself attitude and aesthetic among Vermonters.

“It’s a really creative business and a really independent business,” she said. “It’s a good outlet for people interested in doing their own business.”

Her small dairy does not produce enough cheese to meet the demand, Pindell said.

“It’s a great problem to have,” Pindell said. “We get calls all the time from people who are looking for new cheeses.”